


Gingers, Roses and Rabbits

by ShadowRen



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Ben and Rey and the gang are the rabbits, F/M, Minor Character Death at the beginning, Peter Rabbit AU, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren (minor)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:54:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23172016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowRen/pseuds/ShadowRen
Summary: Armitage Hux has found himself out of a job and in possession of a large manor in the country area of Arkanis, inherited from a dead father he had never known.Rose Tico is an aspiring painter who loves the animals surrounding her quaint little house not far from the Hux Manor.Ben Solo and the Dameron triplets are rabbits who are certainly not pleased with the new invader to their peaceful life in the Arkanisian countryside.What happens when they all come together?(Or, alternatively, a Gingerrose Peter Rabbit AU)
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Rose Tico
Comments: 19
Kudos: 30





	1. Dreadful Mr. Hux

**Author's Note:**

> Moodboard made by [ Brit Hux-Tico (birchwoods01) ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/birchwoods01)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From a prompt in the GingerRose Hub Discord, taken because I can't stop laughing while also being slightly disappointed by the admittedly necessary delay in the release of Peter Rabbit 2. 
> 
> I put this in the tags, but I'll put it again: There is a Minor Character Death in this first chapter. Those of you who have watched Peter Rabbit, you will know who I'm talking about. But be warned.
> 
> Now, enjoy this crazy AU!

Ben Solo was a simple rabbit.

The black rabbit’s daily routine consisted of tidying up the burrow that he and the Dameron triplets lived in, foraging a few berries from the nearby forest, and plucking a flower or two for Rey Dameron, the only doe of the triplets and Ben’s longtime crush.

He would also raid Mr. Hux’s garden at least every few days, whenever the human was distracted enough with mowing down the weeds and angrily shouting at his rickety lawnmower.

Mr. Hux was an unpleasant old man, fat to the edge of mobility and with a grumpiness to match his size. Ben was normally a rather nice rabbit, but he made an exception for Mr. Hux. He took a little enjoyment out of tormenting the man at every turn, the way Hux tormented him with the unwelcome memory of how his father died. 

Confident, cocky Han Solo, gone to scout out the situation when Hux had first set up his tall brick fences, only to end up in a rabbit pie that night at Hux’s dinner table. All that was left of him was his brown vest, caught on a nail on the white gate, which Ben now wore. As many rabbit mates

“Hey Ben, maybe we could, you know, not go in there for once?” Finn Dameron asked him nervously as he squeezed through the narrow opening of the gate. “You’re nice to basically everyone else. Why go after the one guy who could actually put you in a pie?”

“Because he’s the one guy who would rather put me in a pie than talk things out!”

“But did you really try to talk things out with him, or are you just being mad over Han and Leia?”

That stung, even from a close friend. The pang of the empty hole in his heart spiked, taking away his breath and stopping him for a moment. Ben quickly shook his head. He was already inside the garden, and time was running short. “Fine! I’m mad at him because of what he did to Dad. Now are you in for lookout or do you really want me to end up in a pie too?”

His fluffy dark brown companion stole a quick glance past the vegetables, in the direction of Mr. Hux and his noisy lawnmower, and nodded. “I’m with you,” Finn replied, “but don’t get yourself caught.”

“You know me, Finn,” Ben assured, thumping his chest. “I never get caught.”

Ben dashed deeper into the garden, looking through the patches for any good vegetables. He had raided the tomatoes yesterday, and knowing Hux, the old man would have put more traps there. Ben hopped to the other end of the garden, where the carrots and beans grew. As he had expected, there were less traps here, most of them shifted to the tomatoes. Ben plucked ten in quick succession while uprooting a carrot with his foot, tossing all of them towards the tall tree just outside the fence. “Rey! Poe!”

Poe, a rabbit with short fur just a shade lighter than Finn’s, caught six of the bean pods, while Rey deftly caught two pods in each hand. The carrot proved too much, however, whacking the white-furred rabbit on the snout and knocking her off the branch. Ben’s heart leapt into his throat for a moment, until Rey reemerged, two pods in her mouth and her free paw waving the carrot in the air. “I gof ih!”

Ben grinned back at her, and proceeded to pluck more vegetables. He twirled eggplants off their stalks, nipped plums off their branches, and even hopped back over to the tomatoes to grab them anyway.

Once he had a decent pile gathered, he tucked two carrots into the pockets of his brown vest, and started tossing the rest one by one over the fence. “Eggplant! Potato! Carrots! Beans!”

“Hux!” Rey cried to him from the tree, causing him to look up.

“Huh?”

“Hux!”

Ben looked behind him in alarm, launching into a sprint just as the claws of a large rake dug deep into the ground where he had stood barely a second ago. He used his size to his advantage, squeezing past the tiny gaps between the beanstalks while Hux had to run around the patches. As he dashed for the gate, Finn had already pressed himself up against it, frantically beckoning Ben over. “Ben! Come on!”

Ben dove for the opening under the gate, but the carrots he’d stored now made him too wide for the opening, leaving him stuck and trying to wriggle himself free. He gasped as Hux grabbed him by the tail, his wriggles turning into frantic kicks and punches that would never reach the length of the large man’s arms.

“I’ve got a hankering for pie tonight,” Hux sneered as Ben struggled futilely to escape. “Rabbit pie!”

“Mr. Hux?”

Ben cried out as his surroundings spun in tandem with Hux, as the man turned around towards the source of the voice. “Tico,” the old man greeted in his gruff voice.

As his vision refocused, Ben almost sighed in relief when he spotted the kind-eyed woman with dark hair. Rose. Oh thank the heavens, it was Rose.

“Would you kindly let him go, Mr. Hux?” she asked, putting on her brightest smile.

The smile did not ease Mr. Hux’s features in the slightest. Nothing ever did. “Tell these pests that they should be staying out of my garden where they belong,” he growled. “I’ve got half a mind to make this one—” He jerked Ben up painfully by the tail “— into rabbit pie for my dinner tonight.”

“Absolutely not, Mr. Hux!” Rose exclaimed, immediately moving to pry Ben out of the old man’s grasp and into her arms. “Asking them to stay out of your garden, indeed. I suppose you think we can suppress their natural need to feed themselves? Surely, with such a large garden for just one man in the house, you can at least spare a few for these little ones?”

“You may think it cute coming from these little pests, Miss Tico, but where I’m from, it’s called steali—”

Hux abruptly cut off his own sentence, making a choking sound, before toppling forward and crashing to the ground.

Rose cried out in surprise, crouching down to let Ben hop back to his family before pressing two fingers to Hux’s neck.

“Oh dear,” she declared softly after about a minute. “He’s gone.”

She stood up abruptly, and dashed towards her house not too far from Hux’s giant manor, leaving the rabbits by the old man’s prone form.

About half an hour later, they watched as a large white truck with red blinking lights came with a deafening, high-pitched wail. Rose had returned, and conversed with the people from the truck for a few minutes before they hauled Mr. Hux’s body away. Once the back doors of the truck closed, Rose turned away too, and retreated back into her white-walled house. The rabbits could only watch the entire exchange from their perch atop a large rock.

“I guess he’s in a better place now, huh,” Finn surmised as the wailing cry of the truck drifted further and further into the distance.

Ben nodded, while Rey raised a blackberry to shoulder height and squished it.

Poe had a different thought. “Hey, if he’s gone, that means the garden…”

Ben turned to Poe, and connected the dots. “It’s ours again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Ginger will be here soon, I promise!


	2. Armitage Hux

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am having the time of my life writing these right now - one of the highlights has certainly been being able to watch Peter Rabbit scenes almost on loop for 'research purposes'.
> 
> On a side note, my country's just gone into lockdown, which means I now have more time to work on more.
> 
> Anyways, enough of me rambling. On to the Ginger!

Armitage Hux had, in his opinion, one of the best jobs in the world.

Working in the toy department of First Order Departments, based in the dazzling city of Coruscant, Mr. Hux, as he was often called by the other members of staff in the department store, found no greater joy than that of having every toy displayed in perfect order. He knew every detail of every toy that could ever be released, even that of yet unreleased toys, and took pride in keeping true to every detail, down to the last decimal place of the angle at which Apollo 13 was launched and therefore the angle at which its toy model should be tilted for display, lest it shatter the image of a potential astronaut’s dream.

It wasn’t just the toy department that he knew, either. He had memorised the general layout of the entire First Order store within an hour of coming to work there, and it took him just two days to memorise the exact position of every item. Sometimes, he made it his personal duty to properly rearrange the mixed up shirts in the clothing department just down the hall. He wasn’t sure why the department manager there hadn’t been fired yet.

His coworkers in the toys department admired him, though he had to admit they were a little behind when it came to understanding his drive for perfection. None of them had ever been quite capable at the proper care of the pillows in the dollhouses, despite his numerous explanations on the correct technique. It was quite simple, really, just toss and fluff. Toss and fluff. 

They seemed quite attentive when he was explaining the importance of cleaning toilets to the point that they could become drinking fountains, though.

It was in the middle of one such discussion that he had been called to the office of Gwendoline Phasma, the general manager of First Order Departments. He dropped the plastic straw he’d been holding into the toilet bowl, in that moment uncaring about how it might end up in the oceans once it was flushed. “It’s time,” he whispered to himself. “My promotion!”

He shot to his feet, striding past the lines of coworkers on either side of him while readjusting his suit jacket and tie. 

“How do I look?” he asked the secretary, just as he arrived at the door of Phasma’s office. At the reply of “Stunning, Mr. Hux,” he nodded to her with a confident smile, and knocked on the door.

Phasma opened the door herself. Hux was quite tall in his own right, but the female general manager of First Order Departments was taller still, dwarfing the secretary who now returned to her desk. “Come in,” she beckoned, closing the door behind Hux. “Have a seat.”

Hux inched his chair back, smoothing his jacket before lowering himself to sit on the chair. In contrast, Phasma sat in her own chair with no particular ceremony, simply reaching for some papers in a tray on the shelf beside her.

“This may be hard for you to hear, Hux,” she began, “but your father has just passed away, I just received word. I’m sorry.”

Hux blinked, then bent his head forward in a soft chuckle. That was not the news he had been expecting. “I’ve never met my father,” he said, and attempted to divert the conversation back to his earlier assumption. “What about the promotion?”

Phasma leaned forward slightly, squinting in slight confusion. “Excuse me?”

“The associate general manager. The post I’ve been working towards for the past ten years.”

“You’re in shock, Mr. Hux, I understand. Times of grief—”

“No, no,” Hux interrupted, raising a hand to stop her. “There’s no grief, really. I just want to know, did I get the promotion, or not?”

“No,” Phasma replied, “it went to Pryde.”

“Pryde?!” Hux felt his cheek and brow muscles tense in his disbelief, and his voice leapt a few tones higher in tandem. “He is an imbecile,” he sputtered. “No, not even that, to be rightfully called an imbecile would be aspirational for Enric Pryde—”

“— Who also happens to be the managing director’s nephew.”

“So you’re promoting a flagrantly unqualified half-wit to a position of immense importance based purely on nepotism,” Hux said, “and don’t get me started on how old the managing director could be. Pryde is easily in his fifties!”

“This is the First Order, Hux, it’s basically written in our charter,” Phasma sighed, shaking her head. “Do you think I want our best man passed over?”

“Well then… don’t pass me over.”

“This is not the time to be thinking about work, Hux. Please, take some time to process all this. Take as much time as you need.”

“But I don’t want time!” Hux exclaimed, slamming his hands on the desk as he pushed himself up to stand. Realising his mistake, he made a hasty apology through teeth gritted in barely-contained anger. “I’m sorry. I don’t want—” he hit the desk again in an attempt to accentuate his point, and winced internally when he realised he would have to apologise again. “I’m sorry. I just want the promotion, I deserve the promotion — give me the promotion.”

———————————————————————————————

Five minutes later, Hux strode out of the office to a chorus of “I’m sorry, sir,” to which he replied with variants of “It’s alright,” and “Maybe next time.” He was still smiling — he’d made sure of that in the mirror hanging on the corridor wall just before reemerging in the toy department — but he could feel the strain in his cheekbones and wondered if emotion really could carry into the eyes. If it could, they would probably see seething anger ready to pounce.

“Hey Huxyyyyy!”

Hux had to bite his lower lip in order to choke the groan that threatened to leave his mouth, as the person he currently hated most in the world jogged up to him with old, creased hands held to his mouth in a sort of mocking makeshift trumpet. “Pryde,” Hux managed to grunt through without screaming, and offered a stiff hand in greeting. “Congratulations.”

He knew this incompetent man was incapable of sarcasm, but it didn’t prevent the feeling of sheer irritation from the lazy smug grin that broke across Pryde’s face. “I didn’t even want it!” he exclaimed. “I was just over in Naboo yesterday when I got the news. Heavy lies the crown, yeah?”

Hux had unconsciously curled his hand into a fist, which Pryde now bumped with his own, before raising it and bringing it down to slap it painfully on the younger man’s backside. Hux hissed, the risk of his fellow employees seeing his look of pure hatred the only thing stopping him from turning around and throttling Pryde.

Actually, why did he even care anymore? The First Order with their nepotism and a managing director that looked like he should have croaked decades ago, Phasma and her unnatural height and the smug smirk on Pryde’s face— Ugh! Enough was enough. If they wanted to screw themselves over, then screw them!

His decision made, Hux let his fury explode from his fists, swinging his arms to swipe the intricate card tower he had made weeks ago off the table and scattering its remains all over the floor. He followed up with a vicious roundhouse kick into the doll displays, imagining that the glass stands were Pryde’s pompous ass. As he rampaged, a strangled scream wrenched its way out of his throat, and a raging energy he never knew he had surged through his entire body as he sucker-punched the round black mascot of First Order department on his way down the hallway. Unsatisfied at the lack of resistance from the giant plush doll and the way its cylindrical head just popped back upright, Hux doubled back and dove for the full tackle.

Unfortunately, its deceptive bounciness meant that Hux merely rolled off to land painfully on his side and right knee, pain shooting up his thigh and down to his ankle from the impact. The giant black plush mascot, on the other hand, rocked back and forth a few times before staying upright, as if it mocked him too.

That was how security found him moments later, with Phasma behind them. Two of the guards hauled him to his feet, and Phasma handed him a box half-filled with the essentials he had had in his office. Neatly arranged while on his table, they were a mess now inside the box, as if Phasma had simply swept her arm across his desk and into the box.

“This might actually be a blessing in disguise,” Phasma told him as she and the security guards ushered him out of the store. “Get some perspective. Take up a hobby. Get some dirt underneath your fingernails.”

“You sound like every employer, teacher, family member, friend and vague acquiantance I’ve ever had,” Hux muttered bitterly.

Phasma sighed. “I’m going to take your nametag now, Hux,” she said, tugging the pin off and fraying the threads of his suit slightly from the force.

Hux scowled at her, then turned abruptly to two customers just about to enter the store. He didn’t know them, and he likely never will. Just the way he wanted. “Welcome to First Order Departments,” he greeted with the most bitter tone he could muster in his voice alone. “I hope you enjoy drinking dirty toilet water.”

Ignoring the look they gave him, Hux immediately strode down the street with his box of things. Behind him, he heard Phasma’s voice above the din of the crowd.

“Might I suggest some time in the country? It’s calming. Serene!”

———————————————————————————————

The next day found Hux playing the violin in his simple but well-furnished apartment, when the ring of his doorbell interrupted the soft calming drawl of the music. The music continued to play even as he placed down the instrument on the table, until he picked up the stereo control and turned that off. 

He took the three exact steps needed to arrive at just the right distance to open the door such that he would not stub his toe as it swung in, and came face-to-face with a delivery man in his orange uniform.

“Package from Arkanis, sign here,” said the man with short black hair peeking out from underneath his orange cap, while passing Hux an envelope. “Fancy place, that.”

“I don’t know anyone from Arkanis,” Hux noted, opening the envelope and taking out its contents: a few papers and a single key.

“It’s from Unclaimed Property,” the delivery man explained. “Usually means you’ve inherited something.”

Hux studied the text on the papers, and realised that the shorter man was spot on. The key was for the house his estranged father had left him in his will. Why on earth he would leave his estate to an estranged son he had never met, on the other hand, was a mystery he would likely never be able to solve. The location, however, was a problem. “Arkanis? That’s in the country!”

“Fancy country. The houses there go for a king’s ransom.”

Hux stilled. “Ransom enough to buy my own toy shop?”

“I’d imagine so.”

“And fill it with the best merchandise?”

“Should be able to, yeah.”

“Ransom enough to have tempered glass shelving and seasonal window decorations?”

“That—” the delivery man hesistated “— I might have to do some research on. Can I get back to you at mailtime tomorrow?”

Hux, still processing the information he had received, simply closed the door behind him, and scanned the document again.

Enough money to buy his own toy shop. His own toy shop that he could arrange exactly the way he liked, and impressive enough to top First Order at their own game. The thought alone filled him with glee.

He had to get to Arkanis.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me and my sketches, fic updates and random stuff on [ Twitter](https://twitter.com/ShadowRenWrites)!


	3. Party's Over

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Old Mr. Hux is gone, but someone else has come to take his place in the Arkanisian country...

Ben ducked as a hedgehog sailed over his head to stick onto the opposite wall spikes first, hearing the loud honk of the goose announcing a 180-point score for whoever made that shot.

He was starting to think he had made a mistake inviting all the forest animals in to enjoy the newly vacated garden and house. There were vegetables and fruits strewn all across the floor, Beaumont over in the corner gobbling up an entire plate of Maz’s hors d’oeuvres in one go and — were those two mice shaving strips off a fox’s fur?

Hopping over frayed cabbage leaves, Ben briefly wondered if there were even any more vegetables left in the garden. There were so many animals in every possible corner of the house, and he was sure everyone had gorged themselves on food; Beaumont wasn’t even done yet, that pig. Combined with the mess on the floor, Ben had to conclude that he would find nothing left in the morning, and instead left the foyer in search of Rey.

He found her at the top of the stairs, balancing on the rail and looking down at the floor below. “I can fly!”

Ben dove forward to catch Rey just as her hind feet left the railing, and belatedly realised that he hadn’t thought his split-second plan through. Both rabbits plummeted to the ground below, with Ben turning them round so he took the brunt of the impact. It was certainly as bad as he had presumed, feeling something pop in the shoulder he landed on.

Rey rolled off him, gasping as she realised who exactly it was that had tried to stop her. “Ben! Are you alright?”

He could only groan in response, the chaotic din of the animal party around him starting to sound like buzzing flies. “I-I’m fine, just — don’t do that again please, you’ll give me a heart attack.”

“But it’s fun!”

Ben shot the white doe rabbit what he hoped was a pleading look — he still felt a little disoriented to be sure about his facial expressions — and Rey relented, helping him to sit up with a paw supporting the back of his head. “Alright, Ben, I won’t do that again if it worries you so much,” she said, gently bumping foreheads with him and eliciting a curling up of his lips.

He massaged his head in an attempt to alleviate the throbbing, and tried to spot Rey’s brothers. To his dismay, he was only able to see just about everyone else. Chewie was in the kitchen with a few of the smaller animals hanging kitchen utensils on the poor deer’s antlers. Maz had somehow chopped up a few carrots and arranged them neatly on a plate — only to have Beaumont inhale it all again.

Finally, he spotted the two brothers hauling a framed drawing into the sitting room, one he instantly recognised from the two brown rabbits on it as one of his parents, likely taken from Rose’s little art studio. He hopped over to Finn and Poe, touching the frame as if he were seeing its muses in the flesh. Han Solo had his brown vest over white shirt combination that Ben now wore, while Leia had on a dark grey robe that had always somehow managed to look homely and regal at the same time.

“He’s gone now, Mum, Dad,” he muttered. “Just wish you were here to enjoy it.”

“Where’d you wanna put them, big guy?” Poe asked after about a minute of relative silence. “I know they meant a lot to you.”

“They meant a lot to all four of us, Poe,” Finn corrected, hoisting up the lower corner of the picture frame. “Took us in and all that after our own Mum and Dad died.”

Ben solemnly lowered his head, but raised it again as he spotted the perfect placement. “Can you get it up there on that mantelpiece?”

Engrossed in watching Poe and Finn haul the drawing up to the mantelpiece he’d pointed out, Ben didn’t notice Rey padding over to him. The black-furred rabbit leapt about a foot into the air when she touched his shoulder. “Rey! Don’t sneak up on me like that!”

Rey tilted her head, giving him a confused look. “I didn’t sneak up on you. Maybe you didn’t hear me over all the other animals,” she said, gesturing to the chaotic party over in the foyer to prove her point. “Missing Han and Leia again?” she asked, nuzzling the underside of his neck as she looked up at her brothers, now arguing animatedly over something; most likely the positioning of the drawing on the mantelpiece.

“I was just thinking about how they weren’t here to enjoy Hux being gone,” he answered, tugging Rey close and returning the nuzzle to the top of her head. He relished moments like these where he just got to spend time with Rey without being interrupted by her brothers or the need to forage for their daily sustenance.

That moment, unfortunately, was not to last either, as he heard the earlier goose honking louder and louder until the insufferably loud bird was right in front of him.

“Humans are coming!” cried the goose, effectively silencing the chaotic party. “What should we do?!”

Humans?! Already? Ben’s natural instincts kicked into overdrive as he realised that there was no way so many animals could escape unnoticed. “Everybody hide!”

The brief lull exploded into chaos again as animals of all shapes and sizes dove for hiding spots. Ben pulled Rey underneath one of the couches, and he saw Chewie canter into the sitting room; that big guy could probably hide behind the piano there. Thinking as quickly as he could, he whisper-shouted for someone to turn off the lights. The lights went off, and he saw Poe roundhouse kick the front door closed before running into the kitchen.

He cursed mentally when he saw the badger on the foyer table. 

“Oh no… Snap! Hide!” Ben called out. Snap wasn’t exactly the sharpest tool in the shed, but if there was such a thing as a worst time to be a little slow on the uptake, it would be now. Snap swivelled his head round in a panic, then opted to cover his eyes with his paws.

“No, Snap! Just because you can’t see them, doesn’t mean they can’t see you, understand?”

Snap nodded, still covering his eyes.

“Now hide!”

Snap snatched up two nearby carrots and snapped into a pose with his arms outstretched either side and his entire body ramrod straight. 

“What?” Ben cried in disbelief. “No, Snap, now you’re just posing as a candelabra!”

The badger dropped flat to the table surface.

“Now you’re just a tablecloth!” Ben flattened his ears to his head with his paws in frustration. “And now you’re — What are you?”

Snap had curled up, rocking back and forth slowly on the curve of his spine. “I’m a lazy Susan.”

“What?!” 

How was that even a lazy Susan?! Weren’t lazy Susans supposed to be flat?

A soft clicking sound redirected Ben’s attention to the front door. Whoever this was, he had the key to the house.

He looked back to the table, where Snap had now managed to procure a lampshade somehow out of thin air and started posing as a lamp. 

Ben allowed a soft groan to escape his mouth. Did he really have to do everything around here?

The clicking sounds stopped — the door was unlocked. It was now or never.

Ben leapt as high as he could go, and knocked the badger off the table just as the front door swung open.

———————————————————————————————

Hux switched on the lights to the biggest mess he had ever seen in his life. That was saying something, because the second biggest mess he had seen was not even a second ago with all sorts of half-eaten vegetables strewn all over the front yard.

That mess was now doubled, vegetables on every surface imaginable. On the floor, on the stairs, on the couches — were those carrots stuck to the dining room ceiling?

Horror of horrors, it was like a garden tornado had swept through the entire house. Those vegetables would have to go before they started rotting, perhaps in the next five minutes once he had put his luggage in the bedroom. Maybe a little longer so he could actually process the nightmare before him. Yes, he’d give himself an extra ten minutes for strategising against this mess. He usually frowned on wasting time doing nothing, but he would allow himself that luxury just this once. He needed it.

Hux turned away from the dining room and entered the sitting room. The first thing he noticed was a big red target crudely painted on the wall. Who in their right mind would throw darts at a perfectly good wall, or paint over decent, evenly placed wallpaper? The sitting room was by far the neatest one out of all the rooms he had seen so far, which wasn’t saying much: the only improvement was that there were only a few vegetables strewn about rather than a full layer of it.

Feeling a little light-headed from the horrors he had witnessed so far, he set himself down on the nearest couch with a weary sigh. He doubted there were any cleaning services nearby in the country; he would have to clean this giant mess by himself. And now the couch was starting to grow a bump.

Hux blinked as his mind finally caught up with his thoughts. 

The couch was doing what?

Hux cautiously turned towards the bump beneath the white cloth draped over the couch as it slowly rose up to his sitting height. What sort of mold could even grow to that size? It just wasn’t scientifically possible, he thought as he pulled the white cloth off the bump.

He screamed.

The pig underneath the cloth screamed back.

He screamed louder.

So did the pig. 

One more scream from Hux, and the pig scrambled off the couch. Adding to Hux’s horror, dozens of other animals emerged from all possible corners of the house: under the couch, down the stairs, from the drawers — there was a whole deer behind the piano?!

Animals of all shapes and sizes dashed past, forcing Hux to curl in on himself slightly to avoid getting tripped over by the squirrels and hedgehogs or barrelled over by the galloping deer.

“Get… get out!” he cried, shooing off the flood of creatures by pointing at the open door. Realising that it would not actually make them go out any faster, Hux stumbled to the front door and grabbed the coat stand beside it.

“Get out,” Hux growled, dragging the coat stand along the banister of the foyer stairs to swipe off the black rabbit perched on it. A black rabbit with a white shirt and brown vest.

Sweet stars, not even ten minutes in the country and he was going bonkers already.

The rabbit clung desperately to one of the coat stand’s hooks, adding some much unneeded weight to the far end of Hux’s makeshift weapon as he used it to scoop its brown kin out the door. “Every single one of you. Out, you vermin!”

Instead of flying off the coat stand as Hux had hoped, the black rabbit had instead managed to grab hold of two hooks while standing on another two. Their eyes met in a staring deadlock, green against brown, ending only when Hux grabbed hold of the coat stand’s circular base and spun it, whirling the rabbit off onto the ground below. 

He was disappointed when it landed on its feet, but the momentary dissatisfaction gave way to victorious glee when it immediately scampered away, unwilling to challenge him further. 

“Stay out of my house!”

———————————————————————————————

“He had the key!” Ben heard Rey cry out as he caught up to the triplets.

“He must be a Hux,” Poe deduced, keeping pace alongside his sister. Finn was a little further ahead, just behind Chewie’s enormous frame.

A single, loud beep stopped the large deer in his tracks, causing a domino effect as Finn crashed into his leg, Poe into Finn and Rey into Poe. Ben, a little further back, dodged the sandwich pile and clambered up to Chewie’s back. Already he could make out what had stalled the enormous fellow: the headlights of the car that must have brought that terrible man to the house.

Ben climbed further up to cling to Chewie’s antlers, waving his free paw in front of his friend’s eyes. “Come on Chewie, blink. Blink, blink, blink.”

Below him, Ben heard unified grunts; the triplets heaved at Chewie’s legs trying to help move the deer.

Chewie finally blinked at the third wave, regaining movement and dragging the rabbits away with him, the triplets clinging to his legs.

Perched on top of Chewie’s head, Ben looked back at the manor, where the new Hux was still standing at the doorway wielding the coat stand.

He had only just met the man, but Ben was sure he would have trouble getting along with this Hux as well.


End file.
